Categorisation, communication and the local environment. Languages around the world incorporate different systems of categories, and understanding this variation can contribute to a better understanding of similarities and differences between cultures. This project examines how linguistic variation is shaped in part by variation in the local physical and social environment. The methods include computational analyses of large electronic data sets including dictionaries and linguistic corpora tha ....Categorisation, communication and the local environment. Languages around the world incorporate different systems of categories, and understanding this variation can contribute to a better understanding of similarities and differences between cultures. This project examines how linguistic variation is shaped in part by variation in the local physical and social environment. The methods include computational analyses of large electronic data sets including dictionaries and linguistic corpora that have become available only recently, and psychological experiments that probe the causal mechanisms that lead to variation across languages. The outcomes include computational tools that pick out key differences between languages and therefore support cross-cultural communication.Read moreRead less
Attention vs Perception: When is selection optimal, when relational? This project aims to investigate an important, newly discovered dissociation between early visual selection and perceptual decision-making. Contrary to current theories, attentional and perceptual processes are tuned to different stimulus attributes described in the relational vs. optimal account, which implies that current theories of attention do not describe early attention but later, decisional processes. This project will ....Attention vs Perception: When is selection optimal, when relational? This project aims to investigate an important, newly discovered dissociation between early visual selection and perceptual decision-making. Contrary to current theories, attentional and perceptual processes are tuned to different stimulus attributes described in the relational vs. optimal account, which implies that current theories of attention do not describe early attention but later, decisional processes. This project will provide an accurate description of these processes, which promises important theoretical breakthroughs. Work on this project will also significantly advance methods to detect and describe early attentional processes, by identifying error-prone methods of Psychophysics and Neuroscience studies, and proposing remedies.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150100318
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$360,000.00
Summary
Solving the puzzle of complex speech sounds. Speech sounds that fall into the 'l' and 'r' family of consonants ('liquids') are amongst the most difficult to master, both for children learning their first language and for learners of a second. This is because liquids are highly complex and require finely tuned, and language specific, coordination of articulatory gestures. The details of this complexity remain poorly understood, posing significant challenges for remediation of speech errors and fo ....Solving the puzzle of complex speech sounds. Speech sounds that fall into the 'l' and 'r' family of consonants ('liquids') are amongst the most difficult to master, both for children learning their first language and for learners of a second. This is because liquids are highly complex and require finely tuned, and language specific, coordination of articulatory gestures. The details of this complexity remain poorly understood, posing significant challenges for remediation of speech errors and for effective pedagogy in language learning. This project aims to use state-of-the-art articulatory methods to examine liquids in four typologically distinct languages of increasing importance in modern Australian society to lay essential foundations for future work on remediation and instruction.Read moreRead less
Beyond Segments: Towards a lexical model for tonal bilinguals. Most people in the world today speak more than one language. Thus, they need to decide, unconsciously, which language to use at any given time. This project aims to understand how healthy adult bilinguals resolve competition from their unintended language to communicate successfully in the intended language. In both bilingual language comprehension and production, the project will characterise the role of an under-explored linguistic ....Beyond Segments: Towards a lexical model for tonal bilinguals. Most people in the world today speak more than one language. Thus, they need to decide, unconsciously, which language to use at any given time. This project aims to understand how healthy adult bilinguals resolve competition from their unintended language to communicate successfully in the intended language. In both bilingual language comprehension and production, the project will characterise the role of an under-explored linguistic dimension, lexical tone, in cross-language processing. Expected outcomes include enhanced understanding of bilingual communication and theories of bilingual language use, and practical implications for optimal language learning for bilinguals and intervention for clinical populations who speaks two languages. Read moreRead less
Using AI to reveal the true extent & context of alcohol exposure in videos. This project aims to extend an artificial intelligence algorithm to automatically identify and quantify alcohol prevalence in videos. The project is expected to generate significant new knowledge about alcohol’s exposure in these videos’ social, emotional, and environmental contexts. The expected outcomes include a more efficient and automated method of revealing alcohol pervasiveness and its context in the 1000 most wat ....Using AI to reveal the true extent & context of alcohol exposure in videos. This project aims to extend an artificial intelligence algorithm to automatically identify and quantify alcohol prevalence in videos. The project is expected to generate significant new knowledge about alcohol’s exposure in these videos’ social, emotional, and environmental contexts. The expected outcomes include a more efficient and automated method of revealing alcohol pervasiveness and its context in the 1000 most watched videos in Australia, making costly manual coding redundant. Anticipated benefits include enabling governments to better monitor compliance to alcohol product placement guidelines and increased public awareness of the frequency and harmful effects of being exposed to alcohol in videos.Read moreRead less
Nurturing Australia's Little Multilingual Minds. Despite its substantial multilingual capacity of more than 300 languages, Australia has been described as a 'graveyard for languages'. In partnering with community organisations we will facilitate polyglot early learning, commencing with Spanish and Vietnamese. Expected outcomes are a deep understanding of multilingual families’ experiences, a model to support lifespan multilingual education, and openly-accessible database of child language in her ....Nurturing Australia's Little Multilingual Minds. Despite its substantial multilingual capacity of more than 300 languages, Australia has been described as a 'graveyard for languages'. In partnering with community organisations we will facilitate polyglot early learning, commencing with Spanish and Vietnamese. Expected outcomes are a deep understanding of multilingual families’ experiences, a model to support lifespan multilingual education, and openly-accessible database of child language in heritage languages. Benefits include a pivotal contribution to early childhood education with the creation of a tailor-made, principle-based program, which will enhance children’s academic achievement, familial social and mental wellbeing, and cultural and economic opportunities for all Australians. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100106
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$360,000.00
Summary
Measuring interference from prior memories using experience sampling. The project aims to better understand the causes of forgetting in recognition memory. This project will measure participants' experiences using smartphone technology for four weeks before a recognition memory experiment. Similarities between the images in the experiment and images in prior experience can be used to fully specify all interference components within a computational model of recognition memory, leading to a comple ....Measuring interference from prior memories using experience sampling. The project aims to better understand the causes of forgetting in recognition memory. This project will measure participants' experiences using smartphone technology for four weeks before a recognition memory experiment. Similarities between the images in the experiment and images in prior experience can be used to fully specify all interference components within a computational model of recognition memory, leading to a complete model of recognition memory. Better understanding the causes of forgetting in recognition memory could show how interference contributes to memory impairments in ageing, and ultimately Alzheimer’s and other clinical disorders.Read moreRead less
Digital photography: mediation, memory and visual communication. This project aims to address the social impact of major shifts in the production, distribution, viewing and storage of photographic images which have profoundly altered their everyday use. By adopting an interdisciplinary, user-centred approach to digitally networked photography, the project will provide a more holistic understanding of how photographs mediate communication, sociality and memory in the present. Expected outcomes i ....Digital photography: mediation, memory and visual communication. This project aims to address the social impact of major shifts in the production, distribution, viewing and storage of photographic images which have profoundly altered their everyday use. By adopting an interdisciplinary, user-centred approach to digitally networked photography, the project will provide a more holistic understanding of how photographs mediate communication, sociality and memory in the present. Expected outcomes include generating original empirical data, building international collaboration, and creating a new conceptual framework for assessing contemporary photographic practices. The research will provide community benefit by enabling insight into the social and ethical tensions affecting photography in the present.
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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE230101233
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$454,386.00
Summary
Addressing the Crisis of Local Visual News in Regional and Remote Australia. This project aims to measure the volume and quality of visual content on regional news platforms by diverse publishers in eight key geographic areas. It is the first in Australia to examine the full cycle from production through presentation to consumption for local visual news in a regional context. Expected project outcomes include enhanced relationships between journalists and communities, stronger regional news ecos ....Addressing the Crisis of Local Visual News in Regional and Remote Australia. This project aims to measure the volume and quality of visual content on regional news platforms by diverse publishers in eight key geographic areas. It is the first in Australia to examine the full cycle from production through presentation to consumption for local visual news in a regional context. Expected project outcomes include enhanced relationships between journalists and communities, stronger regional news ecosystems, and a more representative local visual news product. These outcomes boost the academic understanding of an understudied area, help regional Australia, including regional Indigenous Australia, see itself in the journalism that is produced in the regions, and provide commercial benefits to hard-hit news providers.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190100789
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$401,808.00
Summary
Social media influencers as conduits of knowledge in Australia and Asia. This project aims to evaluate how social media influencers can become conduits to communicate information among young people between Australia and East Asia. As icons on the internet who are experts in holding attention and amplifying content, influencers have expanded from being mere commercial enterprises to being conduits of public service information by reaching wide, diverse, and sometimes marginalised youth audiences ....Social media influencers as conduits of knowledge in Australia and Asia. This project aims to evaluate how social media influencers can become conduits to communicate information among young people between Australia and East Asia. As icons on the internet who are experts in holding attention and amplifying content, influencers have expanded from being mere commercial enterprises to being conduits of public service information by reaching wide, diverse, and sometimes marginalised youth audiences with important socio-cultural messages. This project will glean lessons from leading influencer ecologies in East Asia (Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo), to understand how we can use internet-native communication formats to improve inter-cultural knowledge and relations in Australia.Read moreRead less